Over the past few months, the phrase "Indo-Pacific" has begun to overtake "Asia-Pacific" in referring to Asia. As the article from APP's Australia National University's members show, the origin of the phrase is Australian.

With the release of the Defence White Paper 2013 on 3 May, Australia officially has a new region, the ‘Indo-Pacific’: a strategic arc ‘connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans through Southeast Asia’.

Given the long history of linking Australian foreign policy to the ‘Asia-Pacific’, this is a significant change in terminology. How did we get to this point and what are the implications?

The ‘Indo-Pacific’ is not a new term in Australian debates. According to the Lowy Institute’s Rory Medcalf, the ‘Indo-Pacific’ was used in the 1950s to discuss decolonisation in the 1960s at two seminars held by the Australian Institute of International Affairs and the ANU, and again in the 1970s [1]. Yet for around 30 years the term was not prominent until its re-emergence in 2005 in a paper by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies’ Michael Richardson who saw the inclusion of India, Australia and New Zealand in the East Asia Summit (EAS) as symbolising a more unified ‘Indo-Pacific’ region.

Proponents of the term have argued that it realistically describes the region in which Australia is situated. Rory Medcalf views the Indo-Pacific as ‘a valid and objective description of the greater regional system in which Australia now finds itself’. In his book There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the rise of Asia, Michael Wesley writes that the concept emerged due to the reality of growing economic and strategic links through Asia: what he terms the ‘Indo-Pacific power highway’.

At the same time, there has been criticism of adopting the Indo-Pacific concept too readily. For example, Nick Bisley and Andrew Phillips have expressed concerns about what the term means and whose interests it serves; it should not be code for ‘dialling up Australia’s alliance commitments to 11’ [4].

The debate between these two camps was fairly even until May 2013 as the Indo-Pacific was not yet embedded into foreign policy. The 2012 White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century mentioned the concept only twice. This was a long way from giving the concept official endorsement.

This situation changed with the Defence White Paper 2013 [5]. Presenting the Indo-Pacific as a ‘logical extension’ of what the 2009 Defence White Paper called the ‘wider Asia-Pacific region’, the 2013 White Paper adopts the concept and ‘adjusts Australia’s priority strategic focus to the arc extending from India though Southeast Asia to Northeast Asia, including the sea lines of communication on which the region depends’. The White Paper sets ‘a Stable Indo-Pacific’ as one of Australia’s four key strategic interests, making the capacity to ‘contribute to military contingencies in the Indo-Pacific’ one of the Australian Defence Force’s four principal tasks. It is hard to imagine a fuller incorporation of the concept into a government policy document.

There are a number of implications of adopting an Indo-Pacific worldview.

First, Australia will need to assess the implications of the Indo-Pacific concept for its key relationships with the United States and China; in particular, whether adopting the Indo-Pacific concept may be perceived to tie Australia closer to the United States and alienate China. Early indications of China’s response to the 2013 White Paper were positive — it seems the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ is less of a concern to China than the characterisation of China as a potential threat [6].

Second, Australia must consider how to build relationships with Indo-Pacific powers as it adopts the Indo-Pacific concept into its foreign policy. Australia will need to engage strongly with many other regional players, for example India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and key African countries, as well as China and the United States. This could include security dialogues and operational cooperation.

Third, Australia will need to invest time and effort in building Indo-Pacific institutions. These institutions include the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) and the EAS. Given that Australia is set to take over the chair of IOR-ARC in late 2013, it is well-positioned to promote greater facilitation of regional cooperation. The EAS also includes the major Indo-Pacific powers, providing a space for cooperation and discussion of regional issues. The EAS has been reported to be a key part of Australia’s foreign policy as part of a ‘six + two + N’ formula for setting priorities [7]. This suggests that Australia’s multilateral focus is increasingly turning towards Indo-Pacific institutions.

The adoption of the Indo-Pacific concept in the Defence White Paper 2013 may have surprised some observers. Many other Indo-Pacific powers are in a similar position to Australia; this means that Australian debates receive attention for indications of how others will respond to similar forces. As something of a bellwether state, Australia’s new conception of its region as the Indo-Pacific will not go unnoticed.

Why are Japan and China now locked in an intractable conflict regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands? Professor Mike Mochizuki will examine the historical, economic, military, territorial and international legal dimensions of this dispute. After considering power transition and nationalism as possible explanations, he will explain the recent deterioration of Japan-China relations by analysing the interactive dynamics between the two countries and the role of domestic politics. Finally, he will consider possible ways to mitigate the conflict.

Professor Mochizuki holds the Japan-U.S. Relations Chair in Memory of Gaston Sigur at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. Dr. Mochizuki was director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies from 2001 to 2005. He co-directs the "Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific" research and policy project of the Sigur Center. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was also Co-Director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy at RAND and has taught at the University of Southern California and Yale University. He is a board member of Asia Policy Point.

Although there were rumors that Hashimoto would link his remarks to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's very similar views on the Comfort Women, he did not.

Shingo Nishimura, a Japan Restoration Party lawmaker who was forced to resign from the LDP in 1999 for calling for Japan's consideration of nuclear weapons, suggested on May 17 that many ethnic Koreans are engaged in prostitution in Japan. He said "Tell the South Koreans in downtown Osaka streets, 'You're comfort women, right?'". The comment had him expelled from his new party the following day.

Below are a number of programs held in Washington this week that touch on issues affecting China:

UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY COLLOQUIUM. 5/29-31. Program designed to help Chinese graduate students better understand the complex forces that shape American foreign policy. Sponsor: National Committee on United States-China Relations. Speakers include: The Honorable Elaine L. Chao, 24th U.S. Secretary of Labor, 2001-2009, The Honorable Cui Tiankai (崔天凯), Chinese Ambassador to the United States; Kin Moy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Erin Ennis, Vice President, The US-China Business Council; James Goldgeier, Dean of American University's School of International Service; Kin Moy, Deputy Assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the U.S. Department of State; Will Wechsler, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for special operations and combating terrorism at the U.S. Department of Defense.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Tobias Harris whose detailed blog posts on Japanese politics at Observing Japan that helped explain LDP and DPJ antics is back! And we are indeed better for it.

He had stopped blogging in 2011. Rumor had it that certain Washington think tankers objected to the respect this young Japan hand received from the media and others.

His observations contradicted much of what these well-paid men and their spokesmodels said about Japan. And he did it with a grace and charm not learned through formal PR lessons or government service.

This Grasshopper joins uber-blogger and The Master of Japanese politics, Michael Cucek over at Shisaku in bringing some light and storm to the understanding of today's Japan.

We look forward to The Grasshopper joining The Master in telling us about grasshoppers at our feet.

~This reference comes from the original TV series (1972–1975) Kung Fu where Shaolin Master Po tells his young student

Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Caine: No.
Po: Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?
Caine: Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?

DOING BUSINESS WITH THE BRICS (BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA, CHINA AND SOUTH AFRICA). 5/20, 9:00am-5:00pm. Sponsor: The Eurasia Center, the Eurasian Business Coalition, and the Russian Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the USA. Keynote Speakers: Daniel Russell, Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs; Florizelle Liser, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for Africa; Holly Vineyard, Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary for Africa, the Middle East and South Asia; Islam Siddiqui, USTR Chief Agricultural Negotiator; Sandile Tyini, Minister, Economic Office, Embassy of South Africa; Sergey Kislyak, Russian Ambassador to the United States; Christopher Smith, Energy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Fossil Energy; Ricardo Monteiro, Head, Trade Section, Embassy of Brazil.

Dennis Halpin, former professional staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has recently become a Senior Fellow at Asia Policy Point. He is a retired Foreign Service officer who served in South Korea as U.S. Consul in Pusan and is a former Peace Corps volunteer in Korea. He is currently a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. The CSIS Korea Chair on May 14, 2013 published his essay below reflecting on the significance of the Park Geun-hye address to the U.S Congress on May 8, 2013.

~~~~~

Despite reports of a scandal involving a member of the Korean President's official party, the recent Washington visit of President Park Geun-hye scored some notable successes. Perhaps, most prominently, President Park's May 8th address to a joint meeting of the Congress demonstrated that the Republic of Korea is in the top rank of American allies. The last foreign leader to address Congress before her, in fact, was another Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, in October 2011 (There was no address by a foreign leader in the election year of 2012). With President Park's address, the Republic of Korea is now in fifth place (tied with Ireland and Italy) as to the number of times one of its leaders have addressed Congress. South Korea is behind only the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and Mexico in this regard.

More important, the Republic of Korea is unique among America's Asia-Pacific allies in having had six appearances by its presidents. Australia and the Philippines have only had three such occasions and Japan has never been given this honor (two Japanese Prime Ministers, Kishi and Ikeda, addressed House meetings but NOT joint meetings of both Houses of Congress).

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was widely expected to address a joint meeting of Congress during his 2006 visit. A letter from then-Chairman of the International Relations Committee Henry Hyde, a World War II veteran of the Pacific campaign, to then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, however, raised concerns about Koizumi's reported plans to visit the Yasukuni Shrine after his Washington visit. The shrine contains the spirit tablet of Hideki Tojo, mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack, as well as other Class-A war criminals. While Hyde said that he welcomed Prime Minister Koizumi, on behalf of a major U.S. ally, addressing Congress, he added the concern that then visiting Yasukuni would be "an affront to the generation that remembers Pearl Harbor and dishonor the place where President Roosevelt made his 'Date of Infamy' speech." When the Hyde letter leaked to the Asian press, the informal plans to have an address to a joint meeting of Congress were dropped. President George W. Bush's trip with Prime Minister Koizumi to Graceland (Mr. Koizumi being an Elvis fan) ended up being the high point of that visit.

President Park also received a rare honor in being invited to address Congress so soon after her inauguration as the Republic of Koreas eleventh chief executive. It was common knowledge among Congressional staff in 2009, of which I was one, that, when President Lee Myung-bak first visited Washington in his official capacity, informal feelers sent out by the Korean Embassy for an address to the Congress were rebuffed.

Then Speaker Pelosi reportedly thought that it was premature for Lee, having served only a little over a year in the Blue House, to be given such an honor. President Lee had to wait until a return visit in 2011, and the successful passage of KORUS FTA, to be invited.

One of the reasons that President Park may have received this honor so early on in her tenure is her status as the first elected woman leader from East Asia. The failure to shatter the glass ceiling in the White House during the 2008 presidential campaign continues to be a source of severe disappointment for a number of American women, including those in political leadership positions. Honoring Confucian Korea which achieved this goal before the United States would, then, seem quite natural.

One hundred and nine foreign dignitaries and leaders have addressed joint meetings of Congress (and only two foreign dignitaries have addressed Joint Sessions of Congress the French Ambassador in 1934 on the 100th anniversary of the death of the Marquis de Lafayette and the Cuban Ambassador in 1948 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Cuban independence following the Spanish-American War of 1898). But among those one hundred and nine, only twelve were women. Two additional women addressed Congressional bodies prior to that: Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands addressed the Senate in 1942 and Madam Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China addressed the House in 1943.

President Park, thus, joins a small, elite set of women leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who have been given the honor. She also is included in the smaller number of five Asia-Pacific women leaders who have appeared before the American Congress, including Madam Chiang Kai-shek, Philippine President Corazon Aquino, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Thus, from several different perspectives, President Park's recent address to the Congress was historic. It also represented a major diplomatic achievement for the Republic of Korea.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Issues of history have dominated the past few weeks of Japan's international relations. For Japan's leaders, they are defending the nation's honor, for all others Tokyo's inability to squarely confront its past undermines trust and distracts from the economy.

APP Senior Fellow William Brooks, who is an Adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, addresses the domestic repercussions of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's focus on "correcting" the misperceptions of history in the essay below that first appeared in the Asahi Asia Japan Watch on May 7, 2013.

Dr. Brooks echoes The Economist's May 18th Cover Story "It's Japan." The editors are unsure if Abe is the economic modernizer, the internationalist, or the radical nationalist. The Prime Minister's emphasis on "backward-facing patriotism as a model for modern strength" and constitutional reform is troubling. Or as The Economist notes:

At best, all this could prove a distraction at a time when some structural-reform initiatives already appear to be running into the sands. At worst, it could endanger all reform by eroding the government’s popularity, at the same time increasing tensions with Japan’s neighbours. Far from having banished the ghosts of his past, as some of his advisers claim, the prime minister is in danger of summoning them up again.

Mr Abe is right to want to awaken Japan. After the upper-house elections, he will have a real chance to do so. The way to restore Japan is to focus on reinvigorating the economy, not to end up in a needless war with China.

~~~~~~

With the landslide victory of the Liberal Democratic Party in December, its president, Shinzo Abe, returned for the second time as prime minister, aiming to fix Japan’s perpetually ailing economy through dramatic policy measures, dubbed “Abenomics,” which were cheered by the markets and welcomed by the public.

As Abe’s popularity soared in the polls to a 70 percent or higher approval rating, it seemed the momentum would give his ruling party an easy win in the Upper House election in July. Abe also defied trade-protectionist sentiment even in his own party and wowed international opinion by making a bold decision for Japan to join the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations that would open the economy to what will become a huge free-trade bloc in the world.

Abe was lauded in Washington, too, by his promise of a strong national security agenda that would enhance Japan’s alliance with the United States. Washington hoped that finally, Japan had a strong leader that it needs to bring the country back on track, return stability to politics and restore Japan’s status as a “tier-one” level member in the global community.

But at the same time, the return of Abe to power has been accompanied by growing controversy due to his nationalistic agenda and revisionist views toward history.

His plan to drastically revise the Constitution, including the war-renouncing Article 9, has set off domestic alarms, even with the LDP’s coalition partner, the New Komeito. He also has upset Asian neighbors by questioning Japan’s wartime legacy and breaking his own taboo by letting Cabinet members visit Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined.

Abe left office in 2007 in a cloud over his handling of the war-guilt issue. Will history ultimately trip up Abe’s second try as prime minister?

Abe's Right-Turn Agenda Detours To Yasukuni
While the Japanese public welcomed the new prime minister, Abe was seen overseas in quite a different light. The Western media were especially critical. The Economist of Britain on Jan. 5, 2013, called Abe an “arch-nationalist” and predicted that his “appointment of a scarily right-wing cabinet bodes ill for the region.” The magazine noted “thirteen [members] support Nippon Kaigi, a nationalist think-tank that advocates a return to ‘traditional values’ and rejects Japan’s ‘apology diplomacy’ for its wartime misdeeds.”

Similar warnings about Abe’s nationalist roots appeared in major U.S. dailies, as well. This sparked a series of rebuttals in op-eds and commentaries from scholars and think-tanks seeing Abe instead as a pragmatic leader who had learned from his unsuccessful first term.

Such concerns seemed borne out when Abe soon began to make comments that were seen in the Western media as “exposing his true nationalist colors.” Abe talked of revising the statements of wartime apologies made by earlier administrations and, in a Diet reply, he questioned the definition of “aggression” to describe Japan’s wartime actions in Asia.

Although he and his Cabinet spokesman sought to assuage irate Korean and Chinese reactions by later assurances that past apologies would always be honored, the damage had been done.

Things did not stop there, however. Abe in his previous turn as prime minister was careful to avoid visiting Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class-A war criminals are enshrined. He was painfully aware of the trouble with China and Korea caused by the visits to Yasukuni of his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, and he desired above all to repair ties with those countries.

This time, however, Abe broke his old rule by allowing three of his Cabinet members, including Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, himself a former prime minister, to pay homage at Yasukuni during its April spring festival. Angry reactions swept across Korea and China, and scheduled high-level meetings were either postponed or canceled. Major Japanese dailies and the Western press slammed Abe. He may have miscalculated Korean and Chinese reactions, for it was clear from the start of his administration that he wanted to repair relations strained by territorial disputes. Although Abe himself did not visit the shrine, only sending a donation of a sacred plant, his allowing his deputy to pay homage at the shrine was to Asian eyes the equivalent of sending a proxy.

The impact of the Yasukuni visits has gone far beyond Asia. Abe was chastised for allegedly revealing his nationalist colors by editorials in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and other major Western dailies. The Financial Times stressed, “Yasukuni ... is irredeemably associated with the nationalist cult of emperor worship.” The New York Times charged: “Visits to Yasukuni … are often seen as proof that Japan remains unrepentant for its brutal wartime march across Asia.”

The Japanese government’s position, which under ordinary circumstances would be reasonable and understandable, is that how Japan mourns its war dead is not something that other countries can give orders on.

Such a stance may still resonate among U.S. officials, for it harks back to the Yasukuni visits of Koizumi during his tenure in office (2001-2006). Koizumi was careful always to state that his intention was to pay homage to the war dead, not to war criminals. But his actions, though certainly not personally linked to nationalism, roiled China and South Korea and wrecked relations with those countries.

Those who defend official visits to Yasukuni as no more than paying respect for the war dead are denying the reality that the shrine long ago has become hopelessly politicized as a symbol of Japan’s militarist past. The Showa emperor himself stopped going to the shrine decades ago when he found that war criminals had been enshrined there. Still, most Japanese these days are probably neutral about the shrine, seeing Yasukuni as just a place to go to pray for the war dead, perhaps their own relatives. They do not think they are praying for the war criminals enshrined there.

Neutralizing Yasukuni
There has been much talk over the years of separating the souls of the war criminals from Yasukuni and enshrining them elsewhere. Other suggestions have included establishing a secular war memorial where even a U.S. president could lay a wreath. Such talk has not led to any action, though one could persuasively argue that the 14 Class-A war criminals do not belong at Yasukuni anyway: They were never killed on the battlefield but were executed for sending millions to die in battle.

As Abe’s miscalculation shows, though, Yasukuni remains a potential lightning rod for trouble if officials believe that visiting there is just an act of respect for the war dead.

Yasukuni Adds To U.S. Security Concerns In The Region
When Yasukuni flared up again in April, Washington officials were likely more upset about the timing of the dispute than with the visits to the shrine by Cabinet ministers. Washington has become increasingly concerned about escalating tensions between Japan and China over the Senkakus, islands both countries claim. China’s maritime surveillance ships repeatedly intrude into Japanese waters near the isles, and earlier this year, a Chinese warship, locking its radar on a Japan Coast Guard vessel, was ready to fire.

Conflict could have ensued. Moreover, the isles have taken on an even more strategic significance when Beijing recently announced that the Senkakus were part of China’s “core interests,” ranking them with Tibet and Taiwan.

Adding nationalism to territorial and historical issues makes an extremely volatile mixture, and U.S. officials worry that in the case of China and the Senkakus, a military clash is not out of the question. In that case, the United States might be dragged into an unnecessary war.

America’s pivot to Asia is largely centered on protecting its maritime security interests in the region. In that connection, Washington would like Japan and China to find diplomatic ways to return relations to a more cooperative mode, putting the territorial issue on the back burner and toning down the historical rhetoric.

Japan's rocky relations with South Korea further complicate U.S. regional strategy. Washington expects trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan and South Korea in dealing with North Korea’s dangerous nuclear and missile programs.

Officials are disappointed, too, that bilateral strategic cooperation between Japan and South Korea, such as planned agreements for intelligence and materiel sharing, have been sidelined by the territorial row in 2012 and made even more remote by the tiff over history.

Moreover, the United States and Japan at this point cannot leverage cooperation from China in pressuring North Korea to reconsider its nuclear ambitions. As Japan becomes more isolated, another casualty is the loss of access to close consultations between Beijing and Seoul over the North Korea problem--a matter of direct national security interest for Tokyo.

Comfort Women Issue Could Roil U.S. Again
The comfort women issue--sex slaves used by the Japanese military in World War II--has the potential to flare up again, not only with Asian countries but also with the United States, if Abe makes good his oft-stated intention to review the 1993 Kono Statement, which admitted military involvement in the recruitment of women, mostly Koreans, to service Japanese soldiers at the war front.

The comfort women issue became a bone of contention between the United States and Japan when Abe was prime minister for the first time. Congress was upset when the Abe government began to deny military involvement in that wartime system, and subsequently passed a resolution critical of Japan’s responses to date.

Americans view the comfort women’s plight as a humanitarian issue and expect Japan to do the right thing. Should the Abe administration, in its review of the Kono Statement, take the tack of again denying coercion and military involvement in this prostitution corps, it will find that the United States has joined the chorus of international criticism, too. Relations that started out so well early in the year could quickly cool. Such a scenario need not happen, though. Abe, who says he has learned from his mistakes in his first time in office, should apply that wisdom by turning over historical issues to historians to discuss and taking politics out of the act.

Monday, May 13, 2013

East and West, diplomats are puzzeled by the Abe Administration's emphasis on recasting Japan's war history as either defensive or entitled. Some think its source is the Japanese reluctance to speak ill of their ancestors, even if they are war criminals. Others believe that the Abe people are simply ideological.

Abe and his Cabinet suggest that no apologies are necessary for defending one's country or liberating another's. That is not aggression. Treaties and international laws justified collecting colonies and territories. Imperial Japan believed in the rule of law.

The Sankei Shimbun editorial below appears to provide another explanation: it is good diplomacy to remind Japan's neighbors of how fanatical and belligerent Japanese can be. It is a unique and troubling argument of "Yasukuni/history as deterrence."

First the author talks about the historical (late-1500s) example of the Shimazu-Clan, which ruled the Satsuma Region of southwest Kyushu. The Shimazus fought against future Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa's army, which was trying to (and eventually did) take control over all of Japan. Even though the Shimazu Clan lost against the Tokugawa forces at the large and crucial Battle of Sekigahara, they fought so hard (e.g., 1,000 warriors charged into the Tokugawa formation and fought until only 80 were left) that thereafter, the Satsuma region was not brought under as stringent control as others (i.e., because the Tokugawa Shogun didn't want to have to fight them again).

In a similar way, toward the end of WW-II, even though Japan was showing signs of weakening and being headed towards defeat, it continued to fight tenaciously, repeatedly sending "Special Attack Units" (Kamikaze) to strike at the enemy. This hard-core/fight-to-the-death Japanese combat caused fear/awe in the U.S. and Allied forces, and they did not want to fight the Japanese ever again, which resulted in the Occupation trying to "de-fang" Japan (e.g., through the Constitution) --- but, the same fear also kept the U.S./Allied Occupation from becoming too onerous to Japan and helped to keep the Showa Emperor in place.

So concerning Yasukuni Shrine... First, it is totally natural for Japanese leaders to visit the shrine and pray for the souls of the brave countrymen who fought so hard and gave their lives for their country. Secondly, it serves as a reminder of how hard/bravely Japanese soldiers fought (and could fight again) to those countries who would view Japan as an enemy or target. So, in a sense, the visits, which call attention to Japan's past military prowess, serve as a form of deterrence.

When Vice-PM Aso and over 160 Diet members recently visited Yasukuni, South Korea immediately cancelled a visit to Japan by its Foreign Minister, and subsequently made strong public/diplomatic protests. But this over-reaction only goes to show that South Korea still fears and recognizes the latent power/strength of Japan, i.e., South Korea's action should be recognized for what it really is.

The media keeps crying that the Yasukuni visits will damage Japan-China and/or Japan-Korea diplomatic relations. They also criticize the visits as "insensitive". But in the cold-reality realm of international politics, it does not pay to be a "yes man" or a "good boy" who tries to curry other countries' favor --- this is something China and South Korea themselves -- and the rest of the World -- know very well.

An editorial in The New York Times on May 11, 2013 (in print on May 12, 2013, on page SR10) chastises the Chinese for defining the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands as "core interests" that will be defended and the Japanese for casting doubt on their willingness to stick to their past war apologies. Neither was necessary and both undermined regional peace and stability.

As he notes: On the surface, the dispute is about history, about which country has the best historical claim to sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu. In fact, it is more about politics, domestic and international, revealing the tangled relations in a region where history is frequently manipulated for political ends.

Buruma proposes no solution, but laments that

Things, in short, are back to square one: Pax Americana containing China, with Japan as Washington's loyal vassal. This might seem a stable, even comfortable, position from the U.S. point of view. In fact, it isn't. For a long time, the Chinese put up with the U.S. being the policeman of East Asia, because the prospect of a more independent, fully rearmed, even nuclear Japan would be worse. But Japan's role as a kind of cat's paw of American dominance, with Japanese nationalists compensating for their subservience by indulging in bellicose talk, will be the source of ever greater tensions, which are bad for everyone, including the U.S.

In December 2012, Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, wrote in an op ed for the The Sydney Morning Herald that the protracted dispute between China and Japan over ownership of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands could serve as a flashpoint for military conflict between the two "nuclear" powers this year.

According to Professor White the dispute over the islands is a symptom of tensions engendered by China's rise in the Asia-Pacific, and the challenge it poses to American influence in the region. White believes that China's recent efforts to shore up its claim upon the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is a means of "pushing back" against US power in the Asia-Pacific.

Here is the text of The New York Times editorial:

Whenever China wants to identify the issues considered important enough to go to war over, it uses the term “core interests.” The phrase was once restricted to Taiwan, the island nation that China has threatened to forcibly unify with the mainland. About five years ago, Chinese leaders expanded the term to include Tibet and Xinjiang, two provinces with indigenous autonomy movements that Beijing has worked feverishly to control.

Since then, Chinese officials have spoken more broadly about economic growth, territorial integrity and preserving the Communist system. But recently they narrowed their sights again, extending the term explicitly to the East China Sea, where Beijing and Tokyo are dangerously squabbling over some uninhabited islands. Top Chinese military officials first delivered the message to Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he visited Beijing last month. The next day, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, told reporters that “the Diaoyu Islands are about sovereignty and territorial integrity. Of course it’s China’s core interest.”

This wording, with its threatening implications, is raising new tensions in a region already on edge over North Korea and several other maritime disputes, and it will make it harder to peacefully resolve the dispute over the islands, called Diaoyu in China, and Senkaku in Japan.

While Japan has held the islands for more than a century, China also claims title and has sent armed ships and planes from civilian maritime agencies to assert a presence around them. The waters adjacent to the islands are believed to hold oil and gas deposits.

To some extent, China is simply throwing its weight around, challenging the United States and its regional allies. On Wednesday and Thursday, Chinese state-run newspapers carried commentaries questioning Japan’s sovereignty over the island of Okinawa, where about 25,000 American troops are based. Japan, whose wartime aggression against China and other countries still engenders animosity, has not helped. Last September, the government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda provocatively bought three of the islands from their private owner.

The right-wing nationalists who took power in December may be equally unwilling to put Japan’s past behind it, although the government of the new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, took a positive step on Tuesday when it said it would abide by official apologies that the country made two decades ago to victims of World War II. China and Japan have strong economic ties and are critical to regional stability. Both will lose if they stumble into war or otherwise cannot resolve this escalating dispute. Though efforts are under way to find a mutually face-saving solution, using loaded phrases like “core interests” to describe the islands only adds to the political and emotional sensitivities and will not advance that goal.

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